The Beesley Buzz: The Bear Grylls Adventure: High Ropes and Archery

Late last year, I had won a family ticket for the High Ropes activity at The Bear Grylls Adventure in Birmingham. Due to medical reasons, we've had to be particularly cautious with visiting anywhere since the pandemic began so it was only last weekend that we eventually got to go there.

We'd booked a 2pm timeslot to allow us plenty of time to get there (as we live quite a distance away in Kent!) Arriving early in the area, we had some time to spare so we started our day by visiting a National Trust property called Baddesley Clinton first. Then we headed to the Bear Grylls Adventure and got checked in for the High Ropes.

There was still some time to spare, so J and D had a turn on the assault course which is an additional activity that is included free when you book tickets for one of the other activities. You don't need to book a timeslot for the assault course and it remained reasonably quiet throughout the day.

Then it was time for the High Ropes! We'd seen the structure outside and it was HIGH! Due to my long-term hip and back problems resulting from my JIA, I was going to sit it out and watch.

But to my surprise, I was joined by D who also ended up sitting this one out. He had REALLY been looking forward to it, but having had his Covid vaccination the day before (it had unfortunately been delayed from the previous week so was the worst possible timing), he began to feel faint. He'd had no reactions to his first dose a couple of months ago but possibly the early start, combined with skipping breakfast, the long journey and then zooming around the assault course first, meant his body just said "no".

He was sweating and shivering and I lay him down on the grass outdoors. The staff at the Bear Grylls adventure were amazing, quickly coming over to check on him and bringing him water to drink and a chair to sit on. He even agreed to wearing his little sister's hat to help with the shivering.

The others meanwhile had an awesome time on the high ropes... J made it all the way to the top and Miss T to the level just below the top. It's an hour long session and they loved every second of it!

It's tricky to see on the photo but if you look closely that is Miss T 3rd person up

J was on a roll...totally in his element... up and up he went to the top!

Back indoors, we got some hot chocolates and biscuits and that seemed to help D perk up.

Then it was time for archery. We'd booked a 4pm slot for archery as we thought it made sense to book another activity in addition to high ropes as we were travelling such a long way to go there. No photos of the archery though as we'd placed all our belongings in the lockers which you get access to with a wristband that locks them. I was able to take part in that as it doesn't affect my arthritis in the way that the other activities would. And I very much enjoyed it.

Even though the archery and assault course are indoors, the whole place is big and spacious and well ventilated. We wore masks and sadly there were only a few other people doing so now that government guidance doesn't require it. More locally to us, a lot of places seem to have kept optional mask-wearing in place so it surprised us that there were so few people with masks.

After archery, it was Miss T and Daddy's turn on the assault course...

Miss T didn't manage to do every activity in the assault course (her JIA has been giving her some issues again recently) but she still enjoyed it and kept a really positive attitude.